Thursday, October 17, 2013

I hesitated in posting this picture, thinking "what if people find it insensitive", "what if...", etc.. Then I reminded myself that this isn't the New York Post for godsakes - I don't have thousands of daily readers. Then I thought, would I censor myself if I was posting for a large audience?

This post, I decided, is a way for me to take off the kid gloves and address the reality that I live with. Why tiptoe around the truth? My parents literally killed themselves through smoking, and my brother drank until his liver shut down. Does that mean they were bad people? Absolutely not, but it also doesn't change the fact that they died from addiction, a fact that I now live with. That's just the way it is.

I am choosing not to be a victim. I am a survivor. I am not claiming to be perfect or better than my family. That's not what this is about. I look at the little me in this picture and I want him to have the happy life he deserves. I cannot change events of the past, but I do have some control over how I approach the future. Here's to positive and affirming life choices. Who's with me?